


A Knight's Path

by shirokuro_sumi



Category: Mabinogi (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 14:50:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20659040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirokuro_sumi/pseuds/shirokuro_sumi
Summary: An alternate ending to g21, told from Altam's pov. (Short fic)





	A Knight's Path

By the time I woke up, you were gone.

I don’t know how I know. There’s so much divine light around that it’d be like noticing one star in the night sky having suddenly disappeared.

Avelin would call me silly, maybe I’d misoriented myself or something. Stars don’t just vanish out of nowhere, she’d say.

But I’ve been watching this star for a long, long time. I’ve let it guide me for a long, long time.

And now, no matter how hard I looked, there is nothing to that night sky but a space where you used to exist.

“Altam? Altam!”

There were bandages over my face. Light floods my eyes as someone pulls the linen off, and I squint at the pain of it.

“See, I told you he was crying.”

I groan. A lot of things are hurting. “Pih...ne…”

Avelin comes up behind her, pushing me back into bed. Behind her, I see more familiar faces, of Knights and friends alike. “Take it easy, Altam; you’re back at the Gate now,” she says. “It’s over.”

“Then,” I say hoarsely, “Talvish and…”

I couldn’t say your name. And it hurt to hear it from everyone as they told me what happened after I automatically ran in after you. How you desperately fought to protect me. How you tried to face down Talvish, who was the Elder, and now a god. How you fell six times but could only get up five.

“Avalon’s closed,” Caswyn grunts. “He sealed it off. Threw us all back here and shut the gate behind him. There’s earthquakes sometimes. That’s all we know.”

“He’s probably still fighting,” Pihne says, looking over to the great doors set in the mountain. “Battling that… that thing that came out of the portal, out of… all that blood…”

She starts shaking and hides in Caswyn’s arms. I feel like hiding too, but… where?

“We’re just waiting now,” Avelin sighs, ending the summary. “For something to happen. Though, I don’t know what we can do when even the Milletian…”

Her voice starts to drift, and she shakes her head. “Well, we’ll do what we can,” she says firmly, sounding more like usual Avelin even if her face still looks sad. “Merlin and Treasure Hunter are working with us now to get the full picture. And the Unholy Light is a lot stronger around Erinn, probably because the Otherworldly God is right there. The towns and villages will need protecting. We can at least do that.”

They leave me alone after. I almost wish they’d stay but I know they’re busy, and they don’t have time to distract me from thinking of you. You probably have never been in a hospital bed, because you don’t get sick or injured for very long. But a lot of thinking happens in a hospital bed. There’s nothing else to do but try to sleep, which I’m really bad at, so I end up thinking. Daydreaming of you, like what I used to do when I was a new Knight, and everything was hard. Learning about things I can do, but can’t act on. Things I can’t do, but must.

But I had you. Or, well, Erinn had you. We had to walk away from so many problems, while you ran right into them. It didn’t matter who was the cause, Fomors or Dananns or even the gods themselves - you would fight anyone to keep people safe. Everyone was nervous about how an outsider to Erinn was gaining so much power but… I secretly cheered you on. Maybe you weren’t perfect, but you knew what was right, and you did something about it. In the Other World, in the dungeons, in Falias and Avon and Uladh and Iria, you endured all that hurt for a world that wasn’t even yours.

To me, you were more of a god than even Aton Cimeni.

Wait, that’s not right… You were better than a god.

You were my hero. My guiding star.

I remember shaking your hand in Tara. I didn’t wash mine for three days because I was so excited to have finally done it. Avelin made me before we went to Tir Chonaill… but then I got to see you again! And again, and again! Not always because of good reasons, but I got to talk to you, and fight with you! Apostles and Prophets, zombies and dragons - we’d encounter so many dangerous enemies but we could do it. We did do it, and I was so happy!

Finally, I wasn’t watching you fight alone anymore, because we were fighting together!

…But,

but you were a star, and I was just a knight.

I am still, even now, just a knight.

Llywelyn called it a ‘miracle’ that I pulled out the Elder’s sword. But what good is a miracle if it didn’t save you? What good are prayers that couldn’t protect you?

It’s night now at Avalon Gate, and I could see the stars shining brightly in the sky. A sky above a world without you in it.

A world that shakes with the clash of holy and unholy light.

Filled with suffering that didn’t need to happen, but will.

…Because of _him_.   


I sit up, and it hurts, but it’s nothing compared to how much you had been hurt. Nothing that would have stopped you from doing the right thing.

Your face lingers in my mind as I re-armor myself, and take a horse away from Avalon Gate.

_Altam, run!_

It’s not your smiling face, the one that made my heart flutter with joy. And it’s not your battle-hardened face, which gave me courage to press on.

_You can’t fight him! _

You were a star, and I was just a weak and powerless knight.

_Please, you can’t do anything here!_

If… if Talvish…

If he really is the will of Aton Cimeni…

_Alta─!_

…

…

I…

I’m sad. And scared.

But angry, too.

I hold out my hand, and a giant greatsword appears in it. The one that used to be his, before he and his god made you cry like that.

“I may not be a star,” I say, strapping it across my back, “but I will do what’s right.”

And for a moment, the white of divine light flickers gold.


End file.
